


and miles to go before i sleep

by celestialskies



Category: Ruby Redfort Series - Lauren Child
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, excessive use of the word 'until', half those character tags dont actually exist lmaooo, literally all anyone ever does in this fic is sigh and frown i'm so sorry, theres also so much fucking dialogue my eng teacher would probably kill me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 13:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskies/pseuds/celestialskies
Summary: The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.





	and miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

> this took me 10 whole months and may be the longest thing ive ever written. I honestly didn't think id ever finish it but the wonderful @/agentredfort on tumblr managed to kick my ass into gear by opening a give away and I slammed out like half of this in about a month. I honestly have no idea if its any good at this point so I'll leave that decision up to you
> 
> potential warnings: brief (very brief) mention of gunshots/gun wounds

Hitch gripped the steering wheel tightly, tanned knuckles turning white.

“Don’t _ever_ ,” he said through gritted teeth, “pull a stunt like that again. You’d better hope LB won’t hear about this – keep it up and you won’t have a boss to worry about. Hell, kid, you’re lucky you didn’t _die_.”

Ruby glared at him.

“Oh, so _now_ you care about my safety. How kind,” Ruby said sarcastically.

“That is not what this is about and you know it.”

“Oh yeah? Then what _is_ this about?”

“It’s about you never thinking through a plan before acting on it! I thought you got over this stupid phase when you were thirteen, but apparently you still think the only way to solve a problem is to tackle it entirely on your own, usually with disastrous consequences! Now I have to explain the absence of the items you stole and find a way to return them without Hal being too suspicious, all while making sure LB doesn’t know anything.”

“Ah, so it’s just about your paperwork, cool. Geez, can you stop acting like every single thing I do is with the sole intent of making your life hard? I _had_ thought it through, I knew the risks, and I only went through with it because it was the only way to follow up on what might be the only lead I’ve had in three weeks.

“Oh, and you didn’t think to call for backup?” Hitch asked disbelievingly.

“Of course I thought about it! I just knew there was no way I’d get clearance since, as you so kindly pointed out, it was a risky plan. Besides, I could have done it by myself and it woulda been fine if you hadn’t showed up outta nowhere.”

The corner of Cedarwood Drive came in sight and neither party said anything more until they were almost home. About ten metres from the driveway of the clapboard house Hitch spoke up suddenly.

**Hitch:** _I’m taking you off the case._

**Ruby:** _You’re_ what _?_

**Hitch:** _You clearly can’t work it responsibly, so you’re not gonna work it at all. I’ll ask Blacker to take over, with explicit instructions to not allow you anywhere near it._

**Ruby:** _You wouldn’t._

**Hitch:** _I’m a high-ranking agent and close friend of your boss, and I think you’ll find I very much would. Be glad you’re not suspended, Redfort._

**Ruby:** _I’m not thirteen anymore, Hitch; I know what I’m doing._

“There is nothing more dangerous than a fool in a position of power who cannot recognise his own foolishness,” was Hitch’s simple reply.

Ruby stiffened.

“You know what? Fine.” She got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. “Take me off the damn case; at least I’ll finally get some downtime.”

“Tell your folks I won’t be home for dinner tonight,” Hitch called through the open window as he started the engine again.

“There’s a surprise,” Ruby muttered as the silver convertible disappeared round the corner and she entered the house. Recently he’d been at the Redfort residence less and less, always off tending to some classified business. She went straight up the stairs to her room, ignoring Mrs Digby’s calls of mild concern, and there she kicked the life out of her poor, unsuspecting beanbag.

**///**

When Ruby didn’t see the Redfort house manager for two days she didn’t bat an eyelid, assuming he was just avoiding her after their argument. (Which she was still angry about, by the way. This was the most interesting robbery she’d seen since the skywalker, two years ago, and now he’d taken it away from her.)

When, after four days, she still had seen neither hide nor hair of hair of him, Ruby assumed he was tied up in some classified Spectrum business that either she wasn’t cleared to know about or he just didn’t want to tell her about.

It wasn’t until he’d been gone for a full week, long enough for even her parents to comment on his apparent absence, that she began to suspect something was up. So, much as she would have preferred not to, she paid a visit to Spectrum 8.

When she arrived, the lobby was empty as ever. A couple of random agents were huddled together in a corner, heads bent together over some unknown paperwork, but other than that there was no one save for the receptionist. Ruby wandered over to the circular desk in the middle, raising a hand in greeting.

“Hey, Pat,” she said, addressing the receptionist.

“Hey Redfort, what can I do for ya?” Patrick asked, looking up.

“You seen Hitch anywhere?”

“Not for a while. I think he’s still away on that investigation upstate.”

“Investigation?” Ruby frowned. That was new.

“Yeah, you he got sent up to Northern California on a mission. Did no one tell you?”

She shook her head.

“First I’ve heard of it.” Pat frowned and picked up a phone.

“I’ll call LB for you, see if she can give you his whereabouts,” he said, holding the bright white receiver to his ear. Ruby nodded in thanks and a leaned a hip against the desk, looking around the familiar atrium. A tall ceiling stretched up for what seemed like miles above her, painted completely white – for an area that appeared to be underground, it sure did look spacious. Just before she could get truly lost in a distracting train of thought about the interior design of her workplace, Pat put the phone down with a gentle _thud_ and she jumped slightly.

“LB wants to see you in her office, says she’ll explain in there,” he said, and Ruby winced.

“That’s probably not good. What have I done now?” she said somewhat mournfully, and Pat gave her a pitying look. Ruby knew exactly what she’d done, really, she was just hoping no one else did.

“She didn’t sound angry on the phone, per se, you might survive,” Pat tried to reassure her. She nodded, unconvinced.

“Maybe.”

**///**

“Redfort,” LB said as the door closed. Ruby resisted the urge to wince again. “Take a seat,” she gestured to her desk, and the young codebreaker sat down somewhat gingerly. “Patrick says you’ve been looking for Hitch.”

Ruby nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t seen him since last Thursday and I wanted to talk to him.” She wanted to apologise for the stunt she’d pulled the other day, and the way she’d acted afterwards. Although she was still mad about being banned from the case, she _did_ feel guilty about Hitch having to saver her hide yet again and she knew his anger was born from concern. Mostly. Probably, at least.

“I also understand that you and Hitch had an argument before he left, and he didn’t want you working on those robberies anymore.”

“He told you about that?” _Darn._

“He told me enough.” Ruby sighed.

“So I guess you know why I’m not on that case anymore?”

LB raised an eyebrow, almost as if challenging her.

“I know that you are familiar with one of the victims, and Hitch decided it wasn’t a good idea for you to work a case you could potentially be too emotionally invested in. Especially if it may lead to new information on the Count. Why, is there anything else I should know?”

The fifteen-year-old blinked in surprise. “I – no. Nope. That’s all. Nothing else.” Even after that dumb fight, he’d still lied to his boss and friend to cover for her. Despite the circumstances, a grateful smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. LB looked at her, clearly sizing up her honesty. She must have somehow passed the test, because her boss continued moments later,

“Very well. Now, as to Hitch’s whereabouts –” Ruby looked up, listening attentively. “– I assume you were aware of his upstate investigation?” At the shake of Ruby’s head, LB looked surprised.

“He didn’t tell you he was leaving?”

“Nope. I had no idea he was even gone until Pat told me just now.”

The Spectrum 8 boss frowned.

“Perhaps your fight was more severe than he told me,” she muttered, and now it was Ruby’s turn to frown. LB cleared her throat and looked up again, seeming to suddenly refocus. “Anyway, about his location …” she sighed, “we are currently unaware about where he is.”

Ruby tilted her head; sure she had heard her boss wrong.

“You … what?”

“Two days ago, I was talking to him over radio. He was in the middle of updating me on the investigation when there was a yell and what sounded like a gunshot. Moments later the connection cut out and we haven’t heard from him since.”

A heavy weight settled in her stomach.

“So he’s …”

“Missing? Yes, currently. However, Hitch is a skilled agent, and I have faith in him to look after himself. It seems very plausible he simply lost his communication device and is otherwise perfectly fine.”

“But wouldn’t he be back home by now?”

“Well, yes, I would expect him to have returned by now. But unless we don’t hear from him for another two days, Spectrum policy says I can’t turn it into an official search.”

Ruby frowned again. “Is anyone currently searching for him unofficially?” she asked, and LB nodded in a somewhat reassuring manner.

“Agent Hal from gadgets and Agent Froghorn from coding. Hal is searching for his comms device and Froghorn is helping.”

“Froghorn?” She still didn’t pay attention to the silent g.

“Yes. I would normally give something like this to Agent Blacker, considering he ranks above Froghorn (albeit by a small margin), but he currently has his hands full with the robberies.

“Ruby nodded. She supposed it made sense to entrust Froghorn with a case such as this; you couldn’t deny he was a skilled codebreaker and a smart man. He just had the unfortunate disadvantage of also being a total potato head.

When LB dismissed her moments later, she decided to swing by the coding room and spent at least half an hour talking to (read: bickering with) Froghorn as he updated her on the search. Hitch had not been found, but neither had any abandoned or damaged equipment so they apparently had absolutely no reason to give up hope. It wasn’t the most comforting of talks.

**///**

That night, her parents asked if she’d seen Hitch lately and Ruby couldn’t look them in the eyes as she told them he’d called earlier, to say that his mother was ill so he’d gone to look after her, and she didn’t know when he’d be back. Her stomach twisted as she said he ought to be back soon, and how weird it was they didn’t know he was gone. He must have told them, she lied, and did her best to ignore the horrible taste it left in her mouth.

Three days later, Froghorn told her they’d located the comms device, but hadn’t been able to get any signal from it. She fell asleep with a sinking feeling in her stomach that night.

**///**

A week after that, Ruby was rudely awoken far earlier than she would have liked on a Saturday morning by the ringing of her donut telephone. “Hello?” she said sleepily into the receiver, expecting Clancy or Del, or someone of a similar variety. Instead, a somewhat nasally and very familiar voice filtered into her ear.

“Hello, Redfort.

 “Froghorn?!” That woke her up a little, and she sat up properly, “How on earth did _you_ get this number?”

“It’s in your official files. Blacker said it’d be the easiest way to contact you this early in the morning.”

Ruby didn’t bother to dispute that point – it wasn’t like he was wrong.

“So? To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” she asked, with only a hint of sarcasm. Froghorn waited a moment before answering, and when he did he sounded tenser.

“It’s about Hitch,” he said. The atmosphere changed suddenly, the air feeling just that little bit heavier.

“I take it it isn’t good news, then,” she sighed, and Froghorn echoed it with a sigh of his own.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Well, let’s have it then. How not good?”

“We still can’t find anything that might give us a clue about his whereabouts. His comms device didn’t tell us anything we don’t already know – which was basically that he wasn’t with it and therefore couldn’t contact us.”

“So he’s still missing,” Ruby said heavily, and to her horror she felt like she might cry.

“Unfortunately. However, there is – well, not quite a silver lining, but I suppose it might lead to one. He’s been officially declared a missing agent, and later today a search team will be sent out.”

“So they’ll go look for him?”

“Yes. I’ll be supporting them from headquarters, providing scans of the area.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “The search team we’re sending is strong. They’re some of Spectrum 8’s best practical agents. Sam Colt is leading them; you know how good at survival technique and tracking he is. If anyone can find him, it will be them.”

Maybe she should leave it at that, but Ruby felt like she had to ask.

“And if they don’t?”

 Froghorn was silent for a while and she almost thought he’d hung up before he replied, voice heavy, “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” And the line went dead.

**///**

20 minutes later, right as Ruby was drifting back into an uneasy sleep, the donut phone rang again. Slapping the desk a few times before landing on the phone, she dragged the set closer to the bed and grasped it with sleepy hands.

“Can’t a troubled teen get some sleep?” she grumbled in lieu of a greeting.

“Hey Rube!” Clancy answered cheerfully, entirely unperturbed by her grumpiness. “We’re going to the diner. You coming or what?”

Ruby sighed. “Gettin’ outta the house would probably do me some good,” she mumbled, not bothering to make herself fully coherent. Clancy would hear her just fine anyway, she knew.

“Of course,” he said, faking offense, “it’s not like you want to see your very best friend who’s been on vacation for three weeks. Which sucked, by the way. The vacation sucked.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she huffed. “See ya in twenty.”

Getting out of the house probably _would_ help, as would talking to Clancy. He’d been dragged off to a cabin in the woods, which was about as murderous as it sounded, with his family  for some ‘business retreat’ for a club Ambassador Crew was a part of, so he hadn’t even heard she’d fought with Hitch. (He also hadn’t heard that she’d maybe, sorta, come kinda close to dying climbing the outside of a building. But he didn’t really _need_ to know about that, she decided.)

True to her word, twenty minutes later she parked outside the Double Donut Diner and pushed open the doors. Ruby was now fully dressed, only a little more awake, and not really any less stressed. As she entered the diner she was greeted with a rush of warm air, in stark contrast to the chilly March weather outside. The bell above the door announced her arrival, singing a merry tune through the diner. Her friends were crowded into a booth near the back of the room, so she wound her way through the tables and slid in next to them, raising a hand in greeting.

“Hey, Rube, you’re not dead!” Del said, and she sounded genuinely slightly surprised.

“Does this mean we can order now?” Elliot asked hopefully.

Clancy offered to go get everyone’s food, and then decided that he absolutely would not be able to carry it all so Ruby should definitely come help him. He dragged her up to the counter, ignoring her annoyed grumbling, and pushed her onto a bar stool. As soon as he’d given their (rather large) order to Marla, he turned back to a still complaining Ruby and put on his ‘serious face’.

“Okay, what’s up? You’ve looked like a lost puppy ever since you walked in.”

Ruby muffled a curse by allowing her head to drop onto her folded arms, resting on the countertop. Was she really that easy to read?

“Don’t worry,” Clancy said, as if reading her mind (it wasn’t too reassuring, really). “You’re still weirdly good at hiding your emotions. I’ve just known you for over a decade,” he said. Ruby sighed. There was no point in lying then.

“Hitch is missing,” she said quietly, turning her head just enough to make her words audible. Clancy squawked.

“Hitch is WHAT?”

He looked dangerously close to flapping his arms and subsequently alerting the entire diner to the issue, so Ruby sat up and held her hand out in what she hoped was a placating gesture.

“Don’t yell,” she pleaded. “I’d rather not have to explain it to all of Twinford.”

Clancy lowered his arms and settled for nervously tapping his fingers against the countertop.

“Hitch is _what_?” he repeated, now closer to a whisper. Ruby sighed.

“Yeah. Missing. I haven’t seen him in about two weeks, although he’s only actually been missing for half of that.”

“Do you … have any idea what happened?” Clancy asked nervously. “Like, what caused him to go missing?”

Ruby recounted everything that LB, and later Froghorn, had already told her, and when she was finished her friends stared at her in dumbfounded silence.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. _Oh_ is about right.” Clancy hesitated for a moment.

“I mean, he went missing once before, right? And that time you saw the plane he was in quite literally blow up, and he was somehow still fine. Hitch is pretty tough, right?”

She sighed. “Yeah, but I don’t know, Clance. I mean, the last time we spoke we just _fought_ , and …” her shoulders hunched slightly, fingers curling against the counter. “I dunno, I just have a bad feeling about it all this time.”

They paused the conversation as Marla placed the majority of their order on the table, and Clancy was kind enough to not question the fight. As he stood up and took the tray, he said,

“I don’t agree with your gut feeling this time around, Rube. I got a hunch he’s gonna be fine, just you wait and see.”

Ruby Redfort just took a long sip of her milkshake, and tried to feel reassured.

**///**

**Meanwhile, somewhere in Northern California …**

_A man somewhat staggered towards the edge of a forest, suit jacket tied around his waist. His right leg was clearly damaged in some way, if the limp in his gait was anything to go by, and his face was filthy and sweat-soaked. But although his eyes were tired, a quiet look of determination was held in them as he looked towards the town he could now see from the edge of the trees. He was nearly home._

**///**

When they left the diner almost two hours later (Marla had not unkindly kicked them out, telling them she _did_ have other customers, you know), Ruby said goodbye to her friends and turned in the opposite direction to home, towards the Spectrum entrance (now hidden behind the bike sheds at the pool, in a room labelled ‘maintenance’).

Pat just nodded as she walked past the desk, engaged in a somewhat heated phone conversation.

“What do you mean he – no, yes, I understand that,” she caught. “What I don’t understand is how you expect me to – LB has stated that for the foreseeable future this search is top priority for Spectrum 8. She has total jurisdiction over everything that happens here and how it is handled. If she says this is what we focus on, this is what we focus on, got it? … Well, you can tell your boss exactly where to stick that opinion,” he muttered before catching himself and apologising.

The conversation was cut off as Ruby rounded the corner into the corridors that would eventually lead her to the office of The Silent G.

Blue walls faded to green until she found the exact shade she was looking for – a sort of pastel green, the sort you might paint the walls of a nursery. _And he calls me the child_ , Ruby thought drily.

She knocked on the brown door to her right (one of the few doors in Spectrum 8 she wouldn’t just walked straight through) and waited patiently.

“Who is it?” a slightly nasal, definitely annoying voice called from within.

“Redfort,” she called back. There was a pause, and then a quiet sigh.

“Come in, Redfort.”

The Silent G himself was sat at his desk, surrounded by piles of papers. The line of his shoulders was tense, and Ruby could tell the moment she walked in that she wasn’t going to receive good news. Still, she greeted him the way she always would, drawling,

“Hey, Froghorn.” (Hard ‘g’ included, of course.)

“Hello, Redfort. I presume you’re here to ask about the search team?”

Dropping the act, Ruby sighed.

“Yeah, I am. Any updates?”

Froghorn looked down at his desk for a moment before answering.

“Yes, but I’m afraid they’re not too positive. I got a call from Agent Colt just a few minutes ago – they’re certainly not done yet, but apparently their first sweep yielded no results. They should be starting a finer comb of the general right about now, so it doesn’t mean they _won’t_ find him. Just that they haven’t yet.

Ruby grimaced. “Great.”

Silence filled the room for a few seconds once more, until Froghorn broke it in the most uncharacteristic of ways.

“I’m sorry, Redfort,” he said quietly. She looked up and blinked in surprise.

“Hey,” she frowned, leaning over the desk to flick the middle of his forehead. “No apologising, weirdo. You’re not allowed to even consider apologising unless we receive official confirmation he’s definitely dead, and even then I’ll only accept it if you personally killed him and delivered the body to my door. Got it?”

Now it was Froghorn’s turn to blink in surprise, staring up at her.

“R-right …”

“Also, never try to be nice to me again; stick to being a bozo,” Ruby added, and he nodded.

“Yes, quite. That felt far too bizarre.”

She turned to leave, but stopped as she turned the doorknob.

“Update me if you hear anything else,” she instructed.

“You’ll be one of the first to know.”

“Cool. And Froghorn …” she said, observing the correct pronunciation for once, “… Thanks.”

Before he could give any sort of reply, she departed the office and turned down the corridor towards main reception. And although she couldn’t say the conversation had been comforting, she found her spirits lifted.

 

**///**

**Later that evening …**

_A group of black SUVs were parked a couple of miles away from the edge of a forest in Northern California. The man from the edge of the forest was leaning against a tree, and he’d never looked more tired. He might have made it to the nearby town already had the group not arrived. Uncertain whether they were friend or foe, he’d retreated into the cover of the trees to at least wait until nightfall. But now the sky was growing dark, and the vehicles showed no signs of leaving. No-one appeared to have entered or left the vans, but a large group of people had caught his attention as they roamed the forest, purpose unknown. He could hear them moving closer towards him, closing in on the tree where he sat, too tired to move. He knew, logically that he ought to get out of sight, work out who they were and whether they could possibly be safe to approach, but he was oh so exhausted. Almost two weeks without a proper meal, proper rest, and proper treatment for a gunshot wound had left him weakened and fatigued. And so the man from the edge of the forest continued to sit against the trunk of an ancient tree and the large group got louder and louder, closer and closer, more and more of a potential threat, until suddenly – the group stopped, bright lights were shining directly into his eyes, and he was staring into a face he knew well._

_“Sam Colt, am I glad to see you,” Hitch said._

**///**

As night fell, Mrs Digby placed dinner on the table. “That butler better recover and come home soon, his mother can’t miss him half as much as my joints do.”

Ruby didn’t answer, sitting quietly on the kitchen counter. The housekeeper swatted her arm in a futile attempt to get her down, and sighed when she didn’t budge.

“Heavens, child, you look like a man who went on holiday without his dog. Alright, I’ll bite – where is he really?”

Ruby looked up, snapped suddenly out of her reverie. “Huh?”

“I’m not Sherlock, but it seems unlikely that such a diligent man who adores you so much would disappear for two weeks straight with no warning or message just because the mother he never seems to speak to is ill. What trouble did he get himself into this time?”

She eyed Mrs Digby for a moment, trying to decide on the best course of action (To lie, or not to lie? That was the question) until,

_Ah, darn_ , she thought. _She already knows far more than she should anyway._

For the second time that day, Ruby spilled Spectrum (and possibly State, it was often unclear) secrets that LB would definitely kill her for sharing, and for the second time in one day her audience listened thoughtfully. When she was finished, Mrs Digby placed a withered hand on her knee, having evidently given up on getting her to move.

“Don’t you worry your clever mind, child. He’s almost tougher than me, that Hitch, and I’m a Digby. Have a little faith.”

**///**

_His boss eyed the wound, now securely bandaged and considerably less painful._

_“Any lasting damage?” she asked, and the doctor looked up._

_“A minor limp after extreme use, perhaps, but nothing huge. I hope.”_

_Hitch sighed._

_“Harper, I really owe you one.”_

_“Between the pair of you, you and Redfort owe me a million,” Harper said drily. “I found a grey hair this morning, and I’m sure it’s your fault. I’m thirty-three, Hitch, I shouldn’t be going grey!”_

_Hitch just laughed. “I’ll make to get Ruby to apologise to you as well,” he said, but suddenly the smile dropped. “Oh, brother, Ruby … she’s going to kill me, isn’t she?”_

_LB nodded._

_“Absolutely. I really ought to debrief you now, found out what happened, but …” She looked at her fellow agent, her_ friend _, and he looked back, alive and mostly well. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”_

**///**

The kitchen was dark at one in the morning, the tiled floor cold. Ruby had tossed and turned in her own bed for more than an hour before she’d given up on sleep for the night and gone downstairs. Now she sat on a high stool at the kitchen island, holding a cold glass of banana milk. She didn’t know how long she sat there, watching the still-full glass, until suddenly a key turned in the lock on the front door. Her head snapped up and she stared at the entrance like a deer caught in headlights, unwilling to let herself hope that it was him.

An unwanted intruder wouldn’t have a key; Clancy could never remember where they kept the spare so used her bedroom window; and her grandmother was currently in New York. Only one other person not currently in the house had a key.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright from here?” an all-too-familiar gravelly voice asked quietly from the hallway, and Ruby’s heart leapt in her chest. Another familiar voice replied, and she would know that one anywhere. That voice always seemed to appear right as she gave up hope, accompanied by an outstretched hand.

“I’ll be fine, I promise. Go home.”

The door closed again but Ruby couldn’t move, frozen in place with surprise and soaring hope. The kitchen door opened, the light flicked on, and suddenly –

Hitch was standing in the doorway, tired and somewhat gaunt but real, alive, _here_. They stared at each in silence for a moment that seemed to last forever, until Ruby spoke without even meaning to.

“You’re back,” she said, unable to say anything else.

“I am,” Hitch said carefully. “I sort of thought you’d be asleep.”

“I sort of thought you’d be dead.”

The silence stretched on  and surrounded them until Ruby broke it once more by scraping the stool back, rushing towards him, and throwing her arms around his waist in and embrace that sent them both staggering back a little.

“I thought – I thought you’d _died_ , Christ, Hitch, there was no sign of sign of you for a week and a half, the last thing anyone heard was gunshots, and we couldn’t seem to track you down even though Froghorn was trying _so hard_ , and the last thing I said to you was in that dumb fight and – and –“ she cut herself off as strong arms wrapped around her, and tried to pretend there weren’t tears in her eyes.

“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I was trying my best to get home, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re the worst,” Ruby said thickly. “You know that, right? You’re the worst, and I hate you.”

Hitch laugh, and wrapped his arms a little tighter around the wonderful, wonderful kid who’d brought him so much frustration and even more joy. And there they stayed for as long as their tired legs would allowing, holding each other in the empty kitchen like they’d never let go again.

“I’m home, kid,” Hitch whispered. “I missed you too.”

**_FIN._ **

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! if you wanna leave a comment i'll love you forever comments fuel me  
> its time for my customary end-of-fic self promo so if you ever wanna,,, follow my tumblr @/lesbianredfort,,,,, thatd be neat,,


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